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Dave Wood's Book Report, Jan. 30, 2008

"Mid-List" is a word that doesn't get much play any more in the book world. In the old days most publishers had a "mid-list" section of books for sale.

These were good books, but books that didn't promise to make a lot of money right away. They weren't at the bottom of the heap, but not at the top, either, at least in terms of sales.

This all changed a quarter century ago when Congress -- in its wisdom --decided to tax publishers' inventories, just as it taxes the nuts and bolts and nails in storage at hardware manufacturing companies.

That meant that publishers operating for profit had to dump their inventories of slow-selling books rather than waiting around for someone to order obscure, but excellent, novels and non-fiction.

Not too bright, Congress, to take aim at an ailing industry and punch it in the guts. (Better to give subsidies to wealthy farmers.)

But there was an exception to the trend of dumping.

Marianne Nora and Lane Stiles opened up a new publishing company in their home in south Minneapolis.

It was non-profit, so they didn't have to dump their inventory. And do you know what they called it?

They jumped in on all fours and called it "Mid-List Press."

They've survived for almost a decade, publishing quality books, reprinting classics like Dr. William Nolen's "The Making of a Surgeon" and sponsoring fiction and non-fiction contests that have yielded several wonderful books.

And now, wonder of wonders, they've got a hot item on their hands.

It's called "The Writer's Brush" (Mid-List, $40) and it's getting rave reviews from publications like The New York Times, the Financial Times, The London Times.